Report: Top Virginia Assistant Coach Leaving For Pepperdine Head Coaching Position

According to multiple reports, Virginia is going to be losing one of its top assistant coaches. Per ESPN's Pete Thamel, Virginia assistant coach Griff Aldrich is going to be taking the head coach at Pepperdine University.

Sources: Pepperdine is finalizing deal to hire Virginia associate head coach Griff Aldrich as the school’s new basketball coach. He led Longwood to a pair of NCAA tournaments as a head coach, as he went 127-100 in seven years there. pic.twitter.com/tuDCkhCOnB
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) March 26, 2026

As Thamel referenced in his original report, this is not going to be the first head coaching job for Aldrich.

Aldrich guided Longwood to Big South championships and NCAA Tournament appearances in 2022 and 2024. In 2021-22, Aldrich earned league coach of the year honors after guiding the Lancers to their first Big South championship and first NCAA Tournament bid at the Division I level. Longwood went 15-1 in league play and stormed through the conference tournament to earn the Big South’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid.

Longwood’s 26-7 overall record and 15-1 Big South record were both high water marks in the team’s Division I history, and the 26 wins were the most since the team went 28-3 in the 1979-80 season and advanced to the Division III Final Four. Aldrich was a finalist for both the Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year Award, given to the top Division I coach in the nation, and the Hugh Durham Award, given to the top mid-major coach in the country.

Aldrich has been an assistant with Odom at previous stops as well before they both landed at Virginia.

At UMBC from 2016-18, Aldrich helped Odom engineer one of the great turnarounds in college basketball. He served as chief of staff for Odom – his college teammate and son of legendary college coach Dave Odom – and was involved in all aspects of UMBC’s turnaround from NCAA cellar-dweller to America East Champion and NCAA Tournament giant-killer. Aldrich oversaw the recruiting and program development efforts and was involved in all aspects of the program from recruiting and scouting to quality control and campus and community engagement.

This is going to be one of the top priorities for Odom as he navigates this offseason. Virginia is also working on replacing senior leaders such as Jacari White, Ugonna Onyenso, Dallin Hall, Malik Thomas, and Devin Tillis, all of whom made big impacts in Charlottesville during their lone season with the program. However, Odom showed the ability last offseason to be able to identify top talent in the transfer portal and have it fit with their program.

A busy offseason awaits Odom and the rest of this staff and this is just one more thing that they have to navigate.